The Sunday Times published their 2012 UK Rich List yesterday, provoking headlines, such as “The rich get richer as the poor get poorer” – a bit of a gimme for any lazy hack, but what does the Rich List really tell us and can we learn something from it? Well a glance at the top [...]
SIPPs, Self-Invested Personal Pensions offer the opportunity to invest beyond Insurance Company or other Regulated Collective Investment Funds and certainly have their place in modern Financial and Retirement Planning. Keen investors may choose to buy and sell individual Shares or Bonds within a Pension wrapper. Buying a Commercial Property, often for rental by the SIPP [...]
Chancellor George Osborne delivered another positive and responsible Budget today, striking the right economic balance between savings and growth, whilst continuing to encourage and reward personal responsibility and hard work. Pensions were spared any changes, a huge relief given the usual pre-Budget speculation and this is to be welcomed, given the last Government’s constant tinkering [...]
Quantitative easing. Not easy to say, but seemingly becoming ever easier for the Bank of England to do. QE (or money printing as it’s known when Zimbabwe does it) allows the Bank of England to buy UK Government Debt and suppress the interest we as a nation pays on the huge sum outstanding. This apparently [...]
Well what a week that was. The strike on Wednesday was certainly disruptive, essentially to our children’s education and to poor souls who had, probably long awaited, operations cancelled. The Union demands are of course ridiculous. Public Sector Pensions and the benefits promised belong to a bygone age where people retired at 60 and lived [...]
From 1st November 2011 any child born after 1st January 2011, or a minor under 18 born before September 2002, may have up to £3,600 per annum paid into a Junior ISA on their behalf, perhaps by Parents, Grandparents or anyone else who wishes to contribute towards their future. The elegibility is a little complicated [...]
Equities are a core investment asset class, but consumers would usually refer to them as Shares. What does a “share” actually mean? Firstly, you are indeed buying a share of the ownership of the business; however minute it might be. Having done that you now share in that company’s fortunes. The carrot to share ownership [...]
The UK inflation figures announced this week were disturbing with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rising 5.2% year on year and the Retail Prices Index (RPI), including housing costs, rising by an even steeper 5.6%. If inflation is matched or even exceeded by wage inflation the pain is softened, but this is not the case [...]
In retail, when a shop has excess stock to shift, or needs to generate more cash-flow the easiest way is to stick a few signs up in the window saying “SALE!”. Provided it’s not a permanent sale of the DFS variety it alerts shoppers to better value and an opportunity to buy more for less [...]
Early Punk Rockers The Clash sang an Anthem “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” still played widely on many Radio stations and across the internet. It is a very good question. When carrying out Financial Reviews or building a Plan I often come across Mortgage Endowment policies, usually no longer relied upon to repay [...]